Secretary General of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Dr. Shafiqur Rahman has issued the following statement on 1st May, 2017 expressing instant reaction to the proposed budget of Tk 4,00,226 crore for 2017-18 fiscal year which has been unveiled in the parliament on 1st of June by Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith.
“The budget of Tk 4,00,226 crore which has been proposed by the Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith for 2017-18 fiscal year is a high ambitious budget which would go clearly against the mass interest. The proposed budget cannot be defined as balanced and pro-people budget. The proposed budget is based on foreign credit or grant and it is a budget with huge deficiency.
The proposed budget ignores the recommendations of the businessmen, industrialist, farmers, labors, government and non-government employees and the general masses. But imposing 15 percent vat, actually this budget has made a blow upon the interest of the 80 percent of people. It is also a vital and crucial strike against the working communities, particularly against the farmers, labors and poor sections. The proposal of imposing 15 percent vat is a mechanism to exploit the impoverished peoples. In a least developed country like Bangladesh, imposition of over 8 percent of VAT is not justified. Except a few quarter of the ruling party, nobody has supported the proposal of imposing 15 percent VAT.
The budget proposed to keep unchanged the tax-exempted income-threshold for individual tax payers at Tk 2.50 lakh. It is same like the previous year. Actually such a proposal is a trick to bring the poor people under the taxation process. Under the current context, tax-exempted income threshold should be increased more.
I am urging the government to withdraw all the elements which would go against the public interest and also to preserve the mass interest in order to make a pro-people budget.
